Tiffany Edmondson and
De’Arbreya Lee
Blue & White Flash / Staff Writers
The man responsible for creating an anti-Islamic video that sparked violent protests around the world has finally been arrested. Fifty-five year old Nakoula Basseley was arrested last Thursday, Sept. 27 for violating terms of his probation, which had nothing to do with the video.
Nakoula has been identified as the primary individual behind the United States produced anti-Islamic video entitled “The Innocence of Muslims”, which portrays the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, womanizer and a child molester. The video was released on YouTube in July and has since sparked controversy and violence in North African and Middle Eastern countries.
The high profile video has also contributed to several killings and uprisings in several countries, including the death of United States Ambassador Christopher Stevens, a diplomat and two American State Department security officers who were killed by a mob attack on the U.S. Consulate in Bengazi, Libya. Dozens of other people have been killed in recent protests.
President Barack Obama and other international leaders have tried to block the video in several countries but it has not ended the riots and people’s perceptions of the muslim’s reaction to the video.
People around the world are now pointing the finger to decide who is really responsible for bashing and rocking the Muslim nation and if the violent murders and riots are justified because of the 14 minute video.
Thousands of miles away, Rim Marghli, a Jackson State University graduate English Literature student from Tunisia, Africa said that the video does not justify a backlash of violence.
“Based on the facts, these riots in the sake of Islam led to acts of vandalism and thievery of the American Embassy in Tunis and the American School. The American government is going to reopen the school and fix the embassy with the financial support of the Tunisian government,” said Marghli.
She added, “Shocked by these unusual types of riots orchestrated by the group of Islamist radicals called Salafists, not Muslims, who went on and vandalized these locations.”
The attacks in Benghazi, Libya, in Tunis, on the U.S. embassy in Cairo and the murder of U.S. ambassador Stevens, has led the State Department to issue new travel warnings in affected cities including Tunisia. Even though these raging rallies have mostly taken place overseas, there are students on campus who are from some of those neighboring countries.
With the encouragement of diversity throughout college campuses, Jackson State University is called home by people of many nationalities, religions, and cultures. Even though many Muslims and other African and Middle Eastern religions have received negative stereotypes, one JSU student wants to help shed a positive light on them as well.
Anas Alfarra is a senior computer engineering major from Gaza Strip, Palestine and he said that the stereotypes don’t effect him but it gives him the opportunity to talk to more people and convince them to change their perception.
“My problem is that this country has a lot of great examples of Muslims and Middle Eastern people starting with this place, Jackson State University. People do not know how many Muslim and Middle Eastern people are very effective in this country and they are proud of being American and serving this country; and teaching Americans and non-Americans like me to build and improve this country,” said Alfarra.
Improving his home country and representing it is a personal obligation for Alfarra.
“I feel that every person is obliged to represent their own country. To be a good representation and ambassador of their country, their culture and religion. If not, we’ll leave the space for people who are not even from that culture to represent us,” added Alfarra.
Corinthians Sanders, a sophomore art studio and urban development major from Chicago, Ill., is a Muslim and said that his religion is one of the fastest growing religions in the country but too many people try to associate them as being terrorists.
“Terrorism was done by the Ku Klux Klan and this happened before this place in time. People fail to learn and realize their own history, only what’s portrayed in the media and they go on and believe that,” said Sanders. “What’s portrayed in the media and the contents of the “Innocence of Muslims” has caused chaos internationally and on American soil. Some of the violence could have been prevented if YouTube would have accepted the government’s request to block the video in certain countries where the riots were increasing.”
Why did it take Google so long to respond to the President’s request while knowing how much this affected people? is the question that Sander’s keeps asking himself to help him understand the video and the reaction behind it.
Sanders said that you can’t fault the people because they took it personally.
“They gathered in honor to defend their religion but those people didn’t have to get hurt or die. Google could have taken the video down,” said Sanders.
In addition to causing outrage, the video has also contributed to a few problems for students. Something that has been overlooked is the fact that there are many international students from the countries affected studying and living in America.
“This video has created religious tensions and will make it harder for students who are studying in the U.S. to return to their home countries,” said Sanders. “Once these students return home, their communities may turn their backs on them and may call them cowards for studying in the country where a film was made they degraded their religious faith and culture.”
Other students at Jackson State feel that the Islamic reaction to the video was extreme.
“It’s morally wrong to react in such a wrong way. I’m sure the Prophet Muhammad wouldn’t want them to react in that way at all if they truly believed in that religion,” said Jesse Leech, a senior criminal justice major from Columbus, Miss.
Cedric Sorrel, a sophomore civil engineering major from Atlanta, Ga. said, “A video like that can cause other religions to go against other countries and religions even more than they are today.”
Time will pass but the mental scars that were created from the anti-Islam film may take months, years or a decade to heal. First, it was the terrorist attacks that changed the world’s perception of the Muslims and now it’s a video that influenced the Muslims perception of Americans.
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